Antony and Cleopatra

Lepidus. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
To soft and gentle speech.

Domitius Enobarus. I shall entreat him
To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,
685Let Antony look over Caesar's head
And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
I would not shave't to-day.

Lepidus. Noble friends,
That which combined us was most great, and let not
A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,
May it be gently heard: when we debate
Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
710Murder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,
The rather, for I earnestly beseech,
Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
Nor curstness grow to the matter.

Antony. 'Tis spoken well.
715Were we before our armies, and to fight.
I should do thus.

Antony. I learn, you take things ill which are not so,
Or being, concern you not.
725

Octavius. I must be laugh'd at,
If, or for nothing or a little, I
Should say myself offended, and with you
Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at, that I should
Once name you derogately, when to sound your name
730It not concern'd me.

Octavius. You may be pleased to catch at mine intent
By what did here befal me. Your wife and brother
740Made wars upon me; and their contestation
Was theme for you, you were the word of war.

Antony. You do mistake your business; my brother never
Did urge me in his act: I did inquire it;
And have my learning from some true reports,
745That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
Discredit my authority with yours;
And make the wars alike against my stomach,
Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
750As matter whole you have not to make it with,
It must not be with this.

Octavius. You praise yourself
By laying defects of judgment to me; but
You patch'd up your excuses.
755

Antony. Not so, not so;
I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
Very necessity of this thought, that I,
Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
760Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
I would you had her spirit in such another:
The third o' the world is yours; which with a snaffle
You may pace easy, but not such a wife.

Domitius Enobarus. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go
765to wars with the women!

Antony. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar
Made out of her impatience, which not wanted
Shrewdness of policy too, I grieving grant
Did you too much disquiet: for that you must
770But say, I could not help it.

Octavius. I wrote to you
When rioting in Alexandria; you
Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
Did gibe my missive out of audience.
775

Antony. Sir,
He fell upon me ere admitted: then
Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
Of what I was i' the morning: but next day
I told him of myself; which was as much
780As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
Out of our question wipe him.

Octavius. You have broken
The article of your oath; which you shall never
785Have tongue to charge me with.

Antony. No,
Lepidus, let him speak:
The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
790Supposing that I lack'd it. But, on, Caesar;
The article of my oath.

Octavius. To lend me arms and aid when I required them;
The which you both denied.

Antony. Neglected, rather;
795And then when poison'd hours had bound me up
From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
I'll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty
Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
800To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
To stoop in such a case.

Domitius Enobarus. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the
instant, you may, when you hear no more words of
Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to
wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

Octavius. I do not much dislike the matter, but
The manner of his speech; for't cannot be
820We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew
What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
O' the world I would pursue it.

Agrippa. To hold you in perpetual amity,
835To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unslipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men;
Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
840That which none else can utter. By this marriage,
All little jealousies, which now seem great,
And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both
845Would, each to other and all loves to both,
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
By duty ruminated.

Antony. May I never
To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:
860Further this act of grace: and from this hour
The heart of brothers govern in our loves
And sway our great designs!

Octavius. There is my hand.
A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
865Did ever love so dearly: let her live
To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
Fly off our loves again!

Antony. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
870For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
Of late upon me: I must thank him only,
Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
At heel of that, defy him.

Lepidus. Time calls upon's:
875Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
Or else he seeks out us.

Domitius Enobarus. When she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up
910his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

Agrippa. There she appeared indeed; or my reporter devised
well for her.

Domitius Enobarus. I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
915Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
920As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
925Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

Domitius Enobarus. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
935That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned i' the market-place, did sit alone,
940Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Domitius Enobarus. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
945Invited her to supper: she replied,
It should be better he became her guest;
Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
950And for his ordinary pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.

Agrippa. Royal wench!
She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed:
He plough'd her, and she cropp'd.
955

Domitius Enobarus. I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street;
And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
That she did make defect perfection,
And, breathless, power breathe forth.
960

Domitius Enobarus. Never; he will not:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
965Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

Mecaenas. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
970A blessed lottery to him.